


A Storm of Echoes

by Jaydee_Faire



Category: Final Fantasy Tactics
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bad Ending, Demonic Possession, Everyone is Dead, Gen, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:35:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27601504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaydee_Faire/pseuds/Jaydee_Faire
Summary: It ends at Riovanes.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	A Storm of Echoes

He landed hard, the peak of the roof cracking into his back, his head bouncing off the tiles and adding a bright shower of sparks to the whirling corona still clouding his vision.

"Someone stop them--!"

A raindrop landed heavily on his cheek. Another splashed into his left eye and he flinched, finally coming around enough to try to breathe. He could smell ozone, taste the metallic tang of it on his tongue and in his throat. His hands were numb to the wrists, pinpricks of feeling only just beginning to return to his fingertips. 

Someone lay atop him, a snarling face with teeth bared like a coerl's as it came close to his own. A blade bit cold into his throat. "You live only long enough to tell us where Miss Beoulve is. Speak swiftly and meet your end the same way. This is the only mercy you will be offered."

"They're gone," a voice panted from further down the roof. "The three of them, gone, and the Stones with them. Agrias--"

Two raindrops landed on his lip and slid into his mouth. He swallowed, then finally gasped in a breath. "Rapha," he said hoarsely.

Memories began to return then, misshapen and out of order: their father shouting at her to stand down; the strange, warm radiance of the amber stone reflecting off of his sister's tear-streaked face; Rapha going down on one knee, her hand braced against the roof when her bare feet slipped out from beneath her.

_"I hear you," she had gasped, clutching the stone against her breast. "I can hear you! Help us, I beg you, please!"_

Rapha's eyes had lit with a color and heat like molten gold, her mouth had opened in a perfect O of terror and wonder. 

And Ramza, teeth gritted, had drawn his sword. 

The weapon had thrust into her quite cleanly, the point of it piercing through her chest and knocking the still-glowing stone out of her hands. She had fallen forward, fingers and toes scrabbling uselessly against tiles made slick by her blood. Whatever sound she may have made, or last words spoken, was drowned out by the wailing of the Auracite as she died.

"Where is she?"

The Nether had exploded out of him, a thing of rage and grief and hatred, burning away all his senses and leaving only a man-shaped thing that had, for one terrible moment, become a perfect conduit. It had surged through him, unchecked by measured chants and mantras, screaming outward in all directions and burning through everything it touched. 

"Where is Alma?!"

Ramza hadn't cried out as he'd fallen. Marach had watched him stagger, eyes huge, armor melting in bright rivulets that left smoking trails across his arms and chest. The Nether had converged on him in a burning white halo, and then...

"Agrias." Weary. "Leave him."

"Not before--"

"Can't you see he's been burned through? He won't live much longer. Let him go." More quietly, "The courtyard is littered with bodies. You can see them from here. Perhaps she is among them."

Marach waited, breathing shallowly, until the last set of footsteps had retreated and the only remaining sound was the rattle of the raindrops on the tiles. It seemed to take an eternity, sliding along the slope of the roof and feeling blindly in the dark, but eventually his blistered fingertips brushed the familiar shape of his sister's shoulder, cold and hard beneath a layer of wet muslin. 

"Rapha," he said, brushing a lock of hair from her still cheek, "let's go home."

**Author's Note:**

> This was a vent fic in which I wanted everything to go as wrong as it possibly could :)


End file.
